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POLITICO 44

The new U.S. face of BP, Mississippi-raised Bob Dudley, spent his second day on the job in a round of Washington meetings aimed at mitigating the PR damage inflicted on the oil company by gaffe-prone CEO Tony Hayward.

Dudley, the company’s board chairman, will take over day-to-day cleanup operations as chief of the company’s newly-formed Gulf Coast Restoration Organization.

Dudley met Thursday morning with Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, EPA chief Lisa Jackson, and White House energy and climate advisor Carol Browner to lay out the company’s new long-term plans for cleaning up the disastrous spill and restoring the Gulf to pre-spill conditions, before heading to a briefing with reporters to further spread the message.

Seated in shirtsleeves at a small table with reporters, Dudley spoke in a soft voice with the occasional hint of a drawl – a public persona that appears aimed at defusing anger incited by the formal British Hayward who appeared to many to be out of touch with the devastated population of the Gulf Coast.

“My job in heading this new organization is to put some stability into BP’s long-term commitment, to make it very visible to the government and states,” Dudley said. “We’re doing things differently.”

Hayward’s visibility to the government and states will be much reduced, however. “BP is a big organization with needs all over the world. I believe he is travelling to Russia and he’s got international travels in the future,” Dudley said.

A big new change in BP’s response to the spill, he said, will be to pay out business claims based on projected losses over the next two months, rather than over past proven losses. “With businesses we’ve done a more traditional view of claims – looking backwards to proven damages. But we realized that’s putting too much stress on businesses – so we’re paying looking forward.” In the case of potentially fraudulent claims, Dudley said, “Our philosophy has been to err on the side of payment.”

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The new U.S. face of BP, Mississippi-raised Bob Dudley, spent his second day on the job in a round of Washington meetings aimed at mitigating the PR damage inflicted on the oil company by gaffe-prone CEO Tony Hayward.

Mr Dudley is not a new face with BP. He's been with the company for years. He was appointed director in April last year. Prior to BP, Mr Dudley was with Amoco, an American oil company.

The board of BP p.l.c. today announced that it has appointed Robert Dudley as a director with effect from April 6, 2009. As a managing director of the BP Group he will assume responsibility for broad oversight of the company's activities in the Americas and Asia.

Mr. Dudley was most recently president and chief executive officer of TNK-BP, Russia's third largest oil and gas company. Prior to taking up the post in 2003, he had worked extensively in commercial, operating and corporate roles across the international oil and gas industry for BP and, previously, Amoco.

Commenting on the appointment, BP chairman Peter Sutherland said: "I am pleased to welcome Bob Dudley to the board and back to BP. He is a talented executive, experienced in all aspects of our business, who helped build TNK-BP into one of Russia's premier companies."

Tony Hayward, BP group chief executive, said: "All of us in BP will benefit from Bob's extensive experience. During his time at TNK-BP he improved the company's governance and its safety and environmental performance while greatly increasing reserves and production."

From 2003 to 2008, Robert Dudley served as the president and chief executive officer of TNK-BP. While Dudley was at the helm, TNK-BP grew organic oil production by 26 per cent, replaced its reserves at an annual average rate of 138 per cent, increased downstream earnings five-fold, achieved the lowest average finding and development cost among Russian oil companies and provided the highest (45 per cent a year) average shareholder return of any major Russian oil company. He left TNK-BP in late 2008.

Prior to joining TNK-BP, Mr. Dudley served as the group vice president responsible for BP's upstream businesses in Russia, the Caspian region, Angola, Algeria and Egypt. He previously was the group vice president for BP's Renewables and Alternative Energy activities within the Gas, Power & Renewables stream in London, with responsibilities for BP's global solar business and wind and hydrogen activities. Prior to that, he served as an executive assistant to the group chief executive officer. In 1999, he held the position of general manager for BP Group Strategy in London and was in a similar role with Amoco Corporation in Chicago prior to the merger between BP and Amoco.

Mr. Dudley was based in Moscow between 1994 and 1997 with Amoco in a corporate development role for both upstream and downstream businesses. Prior to that he worked on the restructuring of oil and gas research and development activities in the US, and between 1987 and 1993 he worked on the negotiation and development of projects in the South China Sea. He joined Amoco in 1979 and in the early years of his career worked in a variety of engineering and commercial roles in the US and UK.

Mr. Dudley and his wife of 29 years, Mary, have two children and will reside in London. He has a BA in chemical engineering from the University of Illinois. He received his MIM from the Thunderbird School of Global Management and also holds an MBA from Southern Methodist University.

Speaking of PR I wonder if the first suicide on record that is the result of the BP oil spill will be addressed? Anyone want to give odds? Lifelong charter fishing Captain Allen Kruse shot himself in the head on the bridge of his boat just two weeks after starting oil spill clean-up work for British Petroleum. http://www.newslook.com/videos... />

Speaking of PR I wonder how the first suicide will be addressed by the new Oil Czar. Lifelong charter fishing Captain Allen Kruse shot himself in the head on the bridge of his boat just two weeks after starting oil spill clean-up work for British Petroleum. http://www.newslook.com/videos... />